1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to data management and more specifically, to indexing systems for optical disk storage media.
2. Description of the Prior Art
When purchased, musical compact discs (CDs) are generally packaged in jewel boxes which are typically rigid, thick plastic cases having a pivoting front cover and an internal mounting platform for receipt of the compact disc itself. Liner notes including information about the disc contents such as song titles and lyrics along with credits and cover artwork are then slid into the front cover with the artwork facing outward. A second liner is placed behind the mounting platform with its ends folded up to place one folded end along the spine of the jewel box indicating the title of the music CD. The compact disc itself is about four and three-quarters inches in diameter, thin, circular, and typically includes a printed side and an opposing optical data storage surface.
Due to their longevity and cost, compact disc owners tend to allow their CD collections to build up and thus storage and organization becomes an ever present problem. A frequent approach to organizing a large number of compact discs is to store them in a storage tower or rotating carousel. CDs are inserted into individual shelves and stacked on top of one another exposing only the spine portion of their respective jewel boxes to display the title of the CD. A CD may thus be identified by reading through the spines to select a desired CD. The jewel case may be removed and opened to remove the CD for playing in a conventional compact disc player or personal computer having a compact disc readable drive. Often the jewel case is left out of the tower until the user elects to replace the CD within the case and place the case and CD back into a tower slot. This method has proven unsatisfactory as the towers required to house a large collection of CDs must be of considerable size thus occupying a significant amount of space. Further, since there is no indexing system the user must undertake the tedious task of examining each individual CD case until the desired one is located. In effort to overcome this deficiency, often a user will organize the CD collection within the tower in some fashion such as alphabetical or even further using musical categories. This does not remove the problem of tower space and as the collection grows, a significant amount of shifting must take place as new CDs are introduced into the collection and must be stored according to the previously determined order.
While the introduction of thin-spine jewel boxes reduces the need for overall space, these thin-spine jewel boxes introduce a new problem because the spines are often narrow leaving little room for display of the title of the CD thus presenting a challenge to selecting the title desired, particularly in subdued lighting. Thus, the user is often forced to withdraw a number of CDs to expose their respective front covers for review until the CD is located.
Since jewel cases are not particularly useful after purchase and take up significant space, they are often discarded leaving only the liner notes and CD. Thus, other attempts have been made to provide a satisfactory storage means for the CDs and their associated liner notes. Two such proposed solutions may be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,620,271 and 5,713,683, both to Bergh et al. These patents describe a three ring binder page for holding compact discs in two by two matrices forming rectangular sleeves defining individual pages and having a transparent front face and an opening along one edge. The sleeves are sized to receive a compact disc or its associated notes. Often a thumb notch is disposed along the open edge to facilitate retrieval of the disc. Along one edge of the binder sheet is a set of holes spaced apart to receive the rings of a binder. A user can flip the pages to locate and remove the desired CD to be inserted into a conventional CD player. While these two patents address an alternative storage scheme allowing a CD collector to do away with the jewel cases, they do not provide any particular organizational means and thus the collector is left with the tedium of leafing through individual pages to visually scan through the transparent front faces of the sleeves to locate the desired CD.
Thus, in addition to storing concerns created by a large number of CDs, the number of compact discs in one's collection may provide a daunting task in managing its organization for quick reference and retrieval. What is needed and heretofore unavailable is a disc management system for indexing and storing indices and other information relating to disc position within a storage medium as well as a method for generating such indices.